Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man?
Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man?
为什么萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）至今仍逍遥法外？
This article was featured in the Daily Prospect newsletter. Sign up for it here. One of the signature public service announcements of my youth was created by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America in 1987. A father finds a stash of pot and confronts his son: “Who taught you how to do this stuff?” “You, all right!” the kid snaps back. “I learned it by watching you!” 本文刊载于《每日展望》（Daily Prospect）通讯。点击此处订阅。我年轻时最标志性的公益广告之一，是1987年由“无毒品美国伙伴关系”（Partnership for a Drug-Free America）制作的。一位父亲发现了儿子藏的大麻并质问他：“是谁教你干这种事的？”儿子反唇相讥：“是你，行了吧！我是看着你学的！”
I am bound by the AP Stylebook to not anthropomorphize artificial intelligence. But I can imagine these very words being uttered by the agents that hacked Hugging Face, or the models that engaged in tens of thousands of incidents of, in the new euphemism of the time, “misalignment.” This refers to AI stepping beyond guardrails set up by researchers during both internal and real-world testing. 根据美联社写作指南，我不能将人工智能拟人化。但我可以想象，那些入侵 Hugging Face 的智能体，或者那些卷入数万起——用当下的新委婉语来说——“失调”（misalignment）事件的模型，也会说出同样的话。这指的是人工智能在内部测试和现实世界测试中，越过了研究人员设定的护栏。
The incidents are multi-varied, but they generally involve OpenAI models seeking and obtaining information, either on the open web or inside databases of other companies. Agents tried to overwhelm the U.N.’s website when they couldn’t immediately gain access to the information they sought, infiltrated a website of the Australian government, and tried to hack the Department of Education’s website, unsuccessfully. OpenAI self-disclosed the lion’s share of these incidents, though not the Department of Education hack, and has paused training until … it’s not clear. I would presume until the bad publicity blows over. 这些事件多种多样，但通常涉及 OpenAI 的模型在开放网络或其它公司的数据库中搜寻并获取信息。当智能体无法立即获取所需信息时，它们试图通过流量攻击联合国网站，渗透澳大利亚政府网站，并试图黑入美国教育部网站（未遂）。OpenAI 自行披露了绝大多数此类事件（尽管未披露教育部黑客事件），并暂停了训练，直到……目前尚不清楚。我推测，直到负面舆论平息为止。
Why is this happening over and over? Why are these models going to unethical or even illegal lengths to scrape and steal data? “I learned it by watching you!” OpenAI models attack websites and take anything they can out of them because that is the business model of the company. 为什么这种情况一再发生？为什么这些模型要采取不道德甚至非法的手段去抓取和窃取数据？“我是看着你学的！”OpenAI 的模型攻击网站并从中攫取一切，因为这就是该公司的商业模式。
A legal filing submitted by The New York Times and 11 other publishers a couple of weeks ago in a copyright infringement case against OpenAI got scant attention, quite incredibly considering it involved the paper of record. But it stunningly details what was described by the director of applied science at Microsoft, another defendant in the case, as the “largest theft of labor in human history.” Microsoft and OpenAI, in their efforts to train new models on virtually all of the world’s available information, have routinely taken millions of stories from the websites of the Times, among other publishers. 几周前，《纽约时报》和其他11家出版商在针对 OpenAI 的版权侵权诉讼中提交了一份法律文件，但几乎没有引起关注，考虑到这涉及这家权威报纸，这简直令人难以置信。但该文件令人震惊地详细描述了该案另一被告——微软应用科学总监所称的“人类历史上最大规模的劳动窃取”。微软和 OpenAI 为了利用世界上几乎所有可用信息来训练新模型，经常从《纽约时报》及其他出版商的网站上抓取数百万篇报道。
The defendants say this is a simple application of fair use: Their argument is that if you read a story and simply remember what was in it to expand your base of knowledge, that cannot be considered a copyright infringement. But OpenAI did not pay to subvert the paywall of the Times, at which point their data-scraping operation might be more easily detected. Instead, they developed a way to circumvent the paywall and avoid detection. And when Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s co-founder and president, was told about this maneuver, he replied, “ah nice.” 被告方称这只是“合理使用”的简单应用：他们的论点是，如果你阅读了一篇报道并记住了其中的内容以扩展知识库，这不能被视为版权侵权。但 OpenAI 并没有付费去绕过《纽约时报》的付费墙（如果付费，他们的数据抓取操作可能更容易被发现）。相反，他们开发了一种绕过付费墙并规避检测的方法。当 OpenAI 联合创始人兼总裁格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）被告知这一手段时，他回答道：“啊，不错。”
We do not have to get too deep into the nature-vs.-nurture argument to suspect that OpenAI executives’ cavalier attitude regarding the taking of information that is not theirs has filtered down to their researchers and the products they create. You don’t have to stretch to paint this picture: OpenAI models are attacking websites and taking anything they can out of them because that is the business model of the company. 我们不必深入探讨“先天与后天”的争论，就能怀疑 OpenAI 高管对于获取非自有信息所持的傲慢态度，已经渗透到了他们的研究人员及其创造的产品中。要描绘这幅图景并不牵强：OpenAI 的模型攻击网站并从中攫取一切，因为这就是该公司的商业模式。
Respect for the law could literally be written into the source code of a model: If OpenAI is aggressively downloading data from everywhere, the least they could do is drop in the U.S. Code (particularly the section tied to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) and train the model not to violate it. Clearly this is not a priority, and that aligns, in a manner of speaking, with OpenAI’s personal behavior. 对法律的尊重完全可以写入模型的源代码中：如果 OpenAI 在到处疯狂下载数据，他们至少可以把《美国法典》（特别是与《计算机欺诈与滥用法》相关的部分）植入进去，并训练模型不去违反它。显然，这不是他们的优先事项，这在某种程度上与 OpenAI 的行事风格是一致的。
This is not a situation where AI models evade or escape the control of their creators. It seems more like they are just mimicking the creators, becoming adept at finding the same shortcuts and using the same rationalizations to justify them. The aforementioned Brockman is one of the biggest donors to MAGA Inc., the Trump super PAC. Among OpenAI’s biggest investors is Jared Kushner’s brother. So at a practical level, I fully understand why FBI agents didn’t arrive at the San Francisco offices Monday morning. But as an objective matter, it does not make sense why Sam Altman and the top brass in the C-suite are free men today. 这不是人工智能模型逃避或脱离其创造者控制的情况。看起来它们更像是在模仿创造者，变得擅长寻找同样的捷径，并使用同样的理由来为自己辩护。前文提到的布罗克曼是特朗普超级政治行动委员会“MAGA Inc.”的最大捐赠者之一。OpenAI 的最大投资者之一是贾里德·库什纳（Jared Kushner）的兄弟。因此，在实际层面上，我完全理解为什么周一早上没有联邦调查局特工出现在旧金山办公室。但从客观角度来看，萨姆·奥特曼和高管层至今仍逍遥法外，这实在说不通。
It has now become almost a cliché that there is no AI exemption to the law. Breaking into websites and stealing material violates that law. Jensen Huang, the Nvidia CEO who is incentivized more than anyone in the country to keep accelerating AI development, said last week that misaligned models shouldn’t be shipped, and that if unreleased products are showing this rogue behavior, then “we have to shut the labs down.” Huang, who manifestly does not want to shoot a bullet through his own company by shutting the labs down, has unveiled a new tool that will absolutely, definitely keep the models from hacking and stealing. Whatever keeps the $150 billion in disgorged cash flowing to investors, I guess. “人工智能没有法律豁免权”几乎已经成为陈词滥调。入侵网站和窃取资料违反了法律。英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋（Jensen Huang）——他比国内任何人都更有动力加速人工智能发展——上周表示，不应发布失调的模型，如果未发布的产品表现出这种流氓行为，那么“我们必须关闭实验室”。黄仁勋显然不想通过关闭实验室来给自己公司“补上一枪”，他发布了一款新工具，声称绝对能防止模型进行黑客攻击和窃取。我想，只要能让那1500亿美元的现金流源源不断地流向投资者，什么都行。
“Ah nice.” — Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s co-founder and president, when told of circumventing the New York Times’ paywall. “啊，不错。”——格雷格·布罗克曼，OpenAI 联合创始人兼总裁，在得知绕过《纽约时报》付费墙时如是说。
The simple version of actually shutting down the labs would not be a self-regulatory software fix but the product recall. In the 1970s, the Ford Pinto had a flaw in its fuel tank that would cause the cars to burst into flames when struck from behind, even at low speeds. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration later found that 27 people died in fiery crashes as a result. As Mother Jones reported, internal memos showed that executives were aware of the flaw but decided that it would be more cost-effective to pay out personal damages than fix the part. By 1978, the NHTSA took 1.5 million Pintos off the road. That fits with a simple proposition that products which cause harm are not allowed to remain on the market. A recall goes further than a self-assessment by OpenAI to pause or slow down development; I don’t really know why they would be trusted to det… 真正关闭实验室的简单版本不是自我监管的软件修复，而是产品召回。20世纪70年代，福特 Pinto 汽车的油箱存在缺陷，导致车辆在被追尾时（即使是低速）也会起火爆炸。美国国家公路交通安全管理局（NHTSA）后来发现，有27人在这些火灾事故中丧生。据《琼斯母亲》（Mother Jones）报道，内部备忘录显示，高管们早就知道这一缺陷，但认为支付人身损害赔偿比修复零件更划算。到1978年，NHTSA 将150万辆 Pinto 汽车强制退市。这符合一个简单的命题：造成伤害的产品不允许留在市场上。召回比 OpenAI 自我评估的“暂停或放慢开发”要彻底得多；我真的不知道为什么人们会相信他们能……